In recent months, the industry buzz around codeless or low-code mobile app development has been increasing. Clearly, starting an app with from scratch is not as efficient as getting a head start either from a framework, or modifying a functional app to meet your needs.
There are a number of development tools that offer a “wizard” process to build an app without having to write code. The output of the tools varies from a basic framework that requires coding to finish, to a complete app.
The question is: should business users build their own mobile apps? While they may know exactly what the app needs to do, how it should work, and how will be used, most non-developers would be intimidated to tackle a development project.
If a business user who learned about one of the codeless or low-code tools were to ask a developer in the office for advice, the developer would probably ask a number of questions:
- What are you trying to accomplish via a mobile app?
- What devices are you going to support?
- How will you test it?
- How will you deploy it to your users?
- How will you know who is using it?
In many cases, the excitement and conversation would end right there. Business users just do not have the experience, time or responsibility to tackle these issues – that’s why we have developers.
For business users to write their own apps, they would need a mobile infrastructure to act as guard rails, and a low-code or codeless tool to offset gaps in skills. The ability for business users and developers to collaborate on a project would also be beneficial, since no matter how good the tooling gets, control and usability are inversely related.
A scenario like this could benefit chief information officers (CIOs), developers and business users alike. The CIO would have a standard architecture that can be used by developers, ensuring consistency and visibility. The infrastructure should also support deployment, updating, reporting and analytics giving the CIO the visibility into usage and adoption to manage the projects.
The developers can access services to handle the mundane parts of building apps and focus on the user interface (which is how their work is usually judged). With a codeless or low-code tool, the business user can build their own apps, and are kept safe by the guard rails. This enables them to write a fully functional mobile app in 15 minutes or less in the cloud, and even collaborate with developers to extend the app.
If you’d like to give it a shot, all you need is a free trial account on SAP HANA Cloud Platform. Click here to see the tutorial, and build your first app today.
Amisha Gandhi is senior director, mobile marketing at SAP. Find her on Twitter @amishagandhi
Jim Jaquet is senior director, developer relations marketing at SAP
This advertisement feature is brought to you by SAP, sponsors of the Guardian Media Network’s Next-gen tech hub
